0000000000464312
AUTHOR
Kati Clements
THE EMERGENCE OF OPEN SCHOOL EDUCATION: THE CASE OF OPEN DISCOVERY SPACE PORTAL
Nowadays, open schooling is considered an education paradigm with increasing popularity, which focuses on the learners and offers more freedom in education outside of the physical and other types of barriers such as accessibility, flexibility, affordability and availability of teacher/tutors, classrooms, schools and educational institutions. The main elements that define Open Schooling are flexible learning, based on fully exploring the potential of ICT to improve education and training systems quality and efficiency, aligning them with the current trends on ICT in education, distant learning and life-long training. The aim of this paper is to present the current status of Open Schooling ma…
Why Open Educational Resources Repositories fail - Review of Quality Assurance Approaches
Regardless of the amount of open educational resources (OER) available, many learning object repositories LORs fail to attract active users and sustainable funding solutions. Previous studies indicate that quality of OER plays a significant role in the success of the repositories; however, there is a lack of systematic deeper understanding of this connection. In this qualitative study we interviewed 35 managers/developers of 27 national, thematic and federated LORs in regards of the LORs’ quality approaches and success. The key findings of this study show that comprehensive quality approach leads to success of the repository in most cases, the key instruments for quality assurance being exp…
Schools Went Online Over One Weekend – Opportunities and Challenges for Online Education Related to the COVID-19 Crisis
This study aims to further the understanding of the opportunities and challenges for online education from the perspective of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak. The situation was unique in many ways, as the migration from traditional to online education was very rapid and forced by situational circumstances. However, it also had the potential to foster organizational change in the use of online education in a way that has never been seen before. A literature review was used to explore the opportunities and challenges for online education, and the results are discussed in connection with the COVID-19 crisis. The study identified nine opportunities and nine challenges for online edu…
Why open educational resources repositories fail : the contribution of quality approaches to the success of repositories
Over the last two decades, millions of Open Educational Resources (OER) have become freely available for teachers and learners online. These resources are usually accessible through Learning Object Repositories (LORs), which are databases with a user interface. LORs are rarely used to their full potential and often considered as ‘failures’. Previous studies have shown that quality has a critical role in the success of information systems such as LORs. However there are no common guidelines for quality assurance approaches for LORs, nor are there studies into the contribution made by different LOR quality assurance approaches to the success of a repository. Measuring quality and success have…
User-oriented quality for OER: understanding teachers' views on re-use, quality, and trust
We analysed how teachers as users of open educational resources (OER) repositories act in the re-use process and how they perceive quality. Based on a quantitative empirical study, we also surveyed which quality requirements users have and how they would contribute to the quality process. Trust in resources, organizations, and technologies seem to be of particular importance when looking at quality. In our findings, we derive recommendations for learning object repositories and OER user-oriented quality assurance.
Digital Mental Health Resources for Children and Youth : Evaluation of Strengths in User Interface Design
The aim of this research is to explore the positive user interface (UI) design of digital mental health resources for children and youth. For this purpose, a heuristic model is introduced and heuristic evaluation is used as a method to systematically assess 49 digital mental health resources. In the assessment, the resources are evaluated by observing the prevalence of UI design strengths defined in the heuristic model. The results of the study indicate that the resources analyzed have strengths especially in the dimensions of visual design, content, reliability, engagement and functional design. Furthermore, all of the resources have at least four design strengths, creating a good basis fo…
Trusted educational networks for the internationalization of open educational resources
Global educational programs have become increasingly important in Higher Education and the training sector. One promising means of global collaboration is the use of Open Educational Resources (OERs). However, this opportunity has been slow to catch on, even though millions of learning objects are freely available around the world. This paper discusses key barriers to the use of OERs, and gives recommendations for better use of materials in international collaborations. A special focus is on the development of Trusted Educational Networks, and their use within recommendation mechanisms to enhance sharing in communities of trusted colleagues. peerReviewed
Harnessing Digital Services for Co-creating Sustainability Value in the Retail Servicescape
While the importance of sustainable consumption is well acknowledged and consumers increasingly demand sustainable alternatives, the consumption of environmentally strenuous products continues to grow. Technological solutions have been discussed for addressing the misalignment between consumers’ attitudes and behavior. This study is the first to use the service-dominant logic lens to investigate how digital services may be harnessed to drive the co-creation of sustainability value in the retail industry. We conduct 10 semi-structured interviews with a Finnish retail company and its customers and reflect on the customers’ experiences with respect to the company’s value propositions in the se…
Open educational resources repositories literature review – Towards a comprehensive quality approaches framework
Display Omitted A comprehensive literature review on learning object repositories (LOR) quality approaches.Most cited quality approaches are "peer reviews" and "recommendation systems".User-generated, collaborative, quality instruments are favored for their sustainability.Main result is a Quality approach framework for LOR design. Today, Open Educational Resources (OER) are commonly stored, used, adapted, remixed and shared within Learning object repositories (LORs) which have recently started expanding their design to support collaborative teaching and learning. As numbers of OER available freely keep on growing, many LORs struggle to find sustainable business models and get the users' att…